Tragedies put spotlight on mental illness, families

McClurg’s son is 18 now, a high school graduate and a whiz at computers who once created a website to raise money for bipolar research. He is smart enough to have taught himself Russian and Chinese.

And he keeps threatening to kill himself.

That, too, is common for this particular mental illness, which is marked by alternating episodes of extreme mania and depression. (It’s sometimes known as manic-depressive disorder.) Severe cases include delusions and hallucinations. About 20 percent of all bipolar patients commit suicide.

McClurg said her family feels lucky to have the resources to put their son into various private mental-health and transitional housing programs that cost several thousands dollars a month. They can afford the therapy and the medications, the constant juggling to find the right formula to keep their son stable.

Even then, they sometimes need help. Last month, their son was suicidal, she said. They called the police and reported that he was a danger to himself, a 5150 in legal terms.

He spent Christmas in a psychiatric hospital.

“As a nation, we have to realize that mental illness is a disease like any other,” McClurg said. “It isn’t a personality flaw. People can’t just decide to get better. It deserves the same respect and dignity that people with other diseases get. And we can’t just sweep it under the rug and nobody wants to talk about it until another unfortunate incident happens.”

He doesn’t hide it

Although studies show that only about 4 percent of violent crime in this country can be attributed to people with mental illness, nobody is suggesting that serious brain disorders aren’t a risk factor.

According to National Institute of Mental Health research, the lifetime prevalence of violence among people with a major psychiatric disorder such as bipolar or schizophrenia is 16 percent, compared with 7 percent among those without a mental illness.

Chris Muto doesn’t have to know those numbers to recognize that some people are fearful of the mentally ill.

He is bipolar, and he sees the fear in those who don’t know him well. “Some people associate any psychological disorder with violence,” he said. “They’re worried that I’m going to stab them or something. It’s hard to get them to move past that original idea.”

Muto, 25, grew up in San Diego. He and his parents knew something was wrong with him in middle school and they went to several doctors who suspected it might be depression or attention-deficit disorder or maybe some combination of things. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in high school.

It took several years to get his treatment right and his moods under control, he said. He credits his parents with being supportive and open about his disease. “They tried to learn a lot without freaking out about it,” he said.

He said he went to the University of San Diego right after high school and struggled, washing out after one year. Then he went to an outpatient program in Florida, where he learned skills — nutrition and cooking, sleep and hygiene — that help him keep his life structured and stable. He also got a community college degree.